Membership in Phi Iota Alpha is open to all men regardless of race, creed, color, or national origin who challenge themselves to develop a strong network for the advancement of Latino people.

[4] Phi Iota Alpha's membership includes prominent and accomplished educators, politicians, businessmen, and four former presidents of Latin American countries.

[7] The founding members were all international students originally from Colombia, Cuba, Ecuador, El Salvador, Mexico, and Peru.

The expansion and growth of the UHA were based on compromise and the ultimate need for similar organizations to unify and become more powerful.

In the Northeastern Province of the United States, a group of Latin American students decided to organize a cultural and intellectual fraternity; as a result Pi Delta Phi (ΠΔΦ) fraternity was founded at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1916 by Nemesio Alvare y Gomez, Segundo Heliodoro Ayala, Rodolfo Lucio Fonseca, Eduardo Germain, Viviano Llano Valdés, Marcial Ernesto Martínez Vilches, Roberto José Ottonello, José Augusto Padilla, Luciano Atilio Preloran, Enrique Rivero Monasterio, and Antonio Helier Rodriguez y Cintra.

Shortly after its foundation, Pi Delta Phi initiated a search to expand to other colleges and universities where they became aware of the existence of other similar organizations.

[11] Pi Delta Phi established communications with Phi Lambda Alpha (ΦΛΑ) fraternity, which had been recently founded in 1920 by Enrique Munguia Benitez, Luis Obispo Benoist, Horacio Peter Gabriel Madero, Raul Ramirez, Alfonso Samper, Abel Santos, Jesus Elias Sasaeta, Santiago Sompre, Gustavo Stahl, Juan Valenzuela, and Douglas Weatherston, in the Western Province of the United States, at the University of California, Berkeley.

[12] After some communication, these two organizations realized the existence of a non-Greek letter secret society, the Union Hispano Americana (UHA).

In 1904, an organization with similar goals as Phi Lambda Alpha was founded under the name Sociedad Hispano-Americana at Louisiana State University.

[11] In December 1931 in Troy, New York, delegates from Phi Lambda Alpha and Sigma Iota assembled to form a unified fraternity to address the needs of Latin American Students in universities in the United States.

On December 26, 1931, the first day of a three-day convention, Phi Iota Alpha was born as both groups agreed to the merger.

The next day of business was dedicated to preparing the details of revising the constitution and working on the creation of a shield to represent the newly formed national Latino brotherhood.

Phi Iota Alpha sponsored the 1932 convention in New York City to form the Union Latino Americana (ULA)[2][18] with hopes of expanding its ideals internationally.

The outbreak of World War II greatly hindered the growth of Phi Iota Alpha in the United States.

[11] In 1984, a group of male students at RPI, set upon learning about the fraternity that once existed on their campus, re-established Phi Iota Alpha.

It builds on the spirit and traditions of Pan-Americanism, and supports and promotes actions leading to an eventual unification of all the countries of Latin America.

The fraternity's insignia, coat of arms or crest, consists of a blazon composed of a gold shield, gules chevron lowered a third charged with six argent stars, three dexter, three sinister.

At the fess point, under an oval azure field, the Latin American Map in gold, surrounded by a steel chain made of 21 links.

The Greek letters ΦΙΑ in azure in dexter, fess point and sinister of the chief, occupying a third part of the canton.

The shield is crowned with a frontal steel helm with nine bars and adorned with argent lambrequins falling at dexter and sinister.

[27] Phi Iota Alpha asserts that through community outreach initiatives, the fraternity supplies voice and vision to the struggle of Latino and Hispanic Americans in the United States and Latin America.

The association promotes and fosters positive interfraternal relations, communication, and development of all Latino fraternal organizations through mutual respect, leadership, honesty, professionalism, and education.

As Phi Iota Alpha expanded, the membership ranks grew to include many prominent and accomplished educators, politicians, businessmen, and four former presidents of Latin American countries.